Meeting with the Merchant
I had been right to clean Lutz against his will and teach him about how interviews worked. Otto and his friend were both well-dressed and groomed, significantly more so than the majority of people passing through the plaza.
I really wish Lutz had managed to get Ralph’s good outfit. Their clothes look kinda weird... Or rather, I just wasn’t used to the style. They used a lot of cloth that formed large drapes, and I couldn’t find any stains or parts traced of patchwork, a stark difference from the clothes I was used to seeing. Judging from his clothes alone, I could assume that Otto’s friend was making decent money. His clothes, posture, and sharp look were all leagues above the merchants I saw in the market.
But although he was a successful merchant, he wasn’t like a wizened company president. He had the intensity of a CEO running a venture capital firm. At a glance, his curly, milk tea hair gave him a soft impression, but his reddish brown eyes were brimming with confidence and gleaming with the sharp ferocity of a carnivore.
“Heya, Myne. I’m guessing that’s Lutz?”
“Good morning, Otto. This is Lutz, my friend. Thank you for making the time to meet us today.” I didn’t know what greeting would work here, so I just did my normal chest-tap salute. Otto saluted in return, so that couldn’t have been too wrong.
“Hi, I’m Lutz. It’s nice to meet you.” Lutz looked nervous, but didn’t crumble beneath the two adults’ intense looks. He managed to finish the greeting I had taught him without stumbling or letting his voice shake. Challenge one, complete.
“Benno, this is Myne, my assistant and the daughter of my captain. Myne, this is Benno. An associate from my days as a traveling merchant.”
“Nice to meet you, I’m Myne.” It wasn’t customary to bow one’s head in this world, so I made sure to keep mine up while greeting him with a smile.
“How polite. I am Benno. It’s pleasure to meet you as well. Hm... You’re a pretty well-mannered little girl, huh.”
“She’s not as young as she looks. She’s six.” Otto followed up on my age for Benno, since I probably looked like a four-year-old. Benno opened his eyes wide, looked at Otto with amusement, then curved his lips into a grin.
“...Your assistant hasn’t even been baptized?”
“Aah, well, actually. I’m in the middle of teaching her to read and write so she can become my assistant.”
“You sure made it sound like she was already helping you out quite a bit.”
“...Let it go, man.”
The subtext of their conversation made a chill run down my spine. Would Lutz and I be able to hold an interview that these two would accept? For some reason... I got the feeling that neither of them would show any mercy to us, even though we were pre-baptism kids.
Benno looked at me from above, suspiciously, and began to talk. “There’s something I’m real curious about. Mind if I start with a question?”
“Not at all. What is it?”
“What’s that stick stuck in your head?”
Hm... I see. You’re asking that now because it’d be awkward to bring up casual stuff after rejecting us, aren’t you? The interview hasn’t even begun and you’re already on the verge of rejecting us?
With a fake smile plastered on my face, I pulled the hair stick out of my hair and held it up to Benno while keeping my eyes locked on him to try and glean any information I could from his reaction. “This is a (hair stick). It’s used to keep hair bundled up.”
Otto seemed to have been curious about it as well, given by how he and Benno both curiously examined it. They lifted it up, turned it around, and stared hard at it. Um... It’s just a stick. There’s no tricks or anything.
“Looks like a simple stick.”
“Uh huh. It’s a wood stick my Dad carved out of a branch for me.”
“You can bundle your hair with just this?”
“Yes.” He gave back the hair stick and I bundled my hair into its usual style. I scooped up some of my hair, wrapped it around the stick, rotated it, and then pushed it forward to lock it into place. I did so every day, so I was used to it.
“Oh hoh... Impressive.” It was the first time either of them had seen me do my hair, so both Lutz and Otto looked at it with wide eyes.
Benno suddenly reached out and touched my hair, then furrowed his brows. “Hey. Your hair’s pretty impressive too. What the heck are you putting on it?” Unlike his fingers, which were gently touching my hair as if apprising its value, his gaze was so sharp I nearly gasped in surprise.
I could tell from his eyes that he had found something to make profit on, and given how all the older ladies pounced on the shampoo at Tuuli’s baptism, I could imagine that my simple all-in-one shampoo would be pretty valuable.
“It’s a combination of common things, but the details are a secret.”
“Boy, do you have the same stuff in your hair?”
“Myne put it on me, saying I needed to look clean for this...”
Ah... Mr. Benno. Did you just click your tongue? Did you take me lightly, thinking I would just tell you right away because I’m a kid? Too bad. Your interview with Lutz hasn’t even started yet. I won’t let go of a valuable card in my hand during this preliminary skirmish. Benno and I gave fake smiles to each other, sparks flying, until Otto let out a sigh and scratched his head.
“So. You want to become a traveling merchant, Lutz?” The interview was finally beginning. I heard Lutz swallow hard next to me. You’ve been thinking about this since yesterday, right? Now’s your time to shine. Tell them your motivation and grab success! I stealthily squeezed Lutz’s hand, hoping to convey that I was supporting him from the side.
“Ah. Right. I...”
“Give it up.” He was stopped before he could even explain himself. At least let him tell you what he worked so hard to think up! I yelled on the inside as Otto looked down on Lutz with an uncomfortable, bitter look. “Only an idiot would give up their city citizenship.”
“...Mr. Otto, what’s city citizenship?” I let a question slip out by accident. I had never heard that phrase before. I could imagine that it meant one’s right to be a citizen living in a city. But I didn’t know whether or not it was similar to Japanese citizenship, which was given to anyone born in Japan even if they didn’t know about it until they learned in school.
“It’s the right to live in this city. At the same time, it’s proof of your identity. When you turn seven and get baptized in the temple, you get registered as a citizen of the city. Citizenship changes everything, whether it comes to getting a job, getting married, or renting a house. It costs a ridiculous amount of money for an outsider to get registered at the temple, obtain citizenship, and earn the right to live in the city proper.”
“Mr. Otto, did you pay that money?”
“Sure did.” Otto nodded with a frown, probably remembering what that was like.
Benno grinned and pointed at Otto. “This guy dumped all his savings so he could marry Corinna.”
“I wanted to have enough left over to buy a shop here, but it took all I had just to afford citizenship.”
I had no idea how much money a traveling merchant would have saved up, but I got the feeling nothing would be enough to afford citizenship, marriage, and opening a store.
“Plus, living in a city and living on the road are completely different. Listen, Lutz. Do you know what it’s like to live most of your life in a horse-drawn carriage?”
“...No.” Lutz shook his head. It took at most two hours to walk from one side of the city to the other, so the kids of the city fundamentally walked everywhere. Lutz had probably never ridden in a carriage in his life, so he probably couldn’t imagine such a life.
“Take water, for instance. What do you do if you need water?”
“Draw it from the well.”
“Right. But there aren’t any wells on the road. You gotta find your own sources of water.”
“A river could...” Lutz immediately imagined using a river as a source of water, like the one in the forest. But it’s not like he would be traveling alongside a river the whole time. And given how expensive paper was, I couldn’t imagine that every traveling merchant had a good map.
“When a traveling merchant first leaves town, they won’t know where the rivers are, Lutz. You won’t be traveling beside one the whole time, so...” I said.
“Myne’s right. So usually, you always follow the same routes. You learn more as the years go on, you trade information, and you gradually get to know which roads are safe and where the usable sources of water are. You pass that information onto your kids and they inherit your routes. There’s no room for other people in the middle of the cramped carriage you live in. And now, the most important part: where traveling merchants end up. Do you know what traveling merchants want more than anything else?”
Lutz fell silent and shook his head.
“City citizenship.”
“Wha?!”
“They want to end their hard life on the road and live in a city someday. They want to own a store in a city and do business safely. That’s what they save up money for. That’s the dream of a traveling merchant. No traveling merchant will take a kid who already has a citizenship. If you want to go down this road in life, you gotta start on your own. There’s no apprentice system for traveling merchants.”
If the dream of a traveling merchant was citizenship, then Otto had already achieved his dream. He didn’t get the store he apparently wanted, but still, I didn’t know why a merchant would have become a soldier.
“Mr. Otto, why did you choose to become a soldier?”
“Wait! Stop. Don’t ask tha— mgggh!” Benno started to say something, but Otto clamped a hand over his mouth and made a bold proclamation.
“To marry Corinna.”
“I-I want to know the details!”
“Listen, girl, I don’t wanna hear them. He’ll never shut up once he gets going.” Benno hurriedly tried to stop me, but Otto’s eyes were already shining.
“Indeed. It all began not long after I entered adulthood. I came to this city and fell in love with Corinna at first sight. It was like an arrow piercing my heart, or the heavens themselves shining down upon us. In either case, I could see nothing but Corinna. I knew in my heart she was the only one I would ever want to marry, and I immediately wooed her.”
“...I didn’t expect you to be so passionate, Mr. Otto.” Apparently, even a calculating former merchant with pitch-black ideas hiding behind a warm smile could be driven wild with love. His brown eyes and dark brown hair gave him a composed and down-to-earth aura, so it was hard for me to imagine him getting passionate with love.
“That’s just how wonderful Corinna is. Well, I launched a pretty impressive attack, but she turned me down at first. She’s a famous, skilled seamstress and wanted to preserve the working relationships she’d formed in the city. She told me she couldn’t live a life of traveling, as I remember.”
It’s true that you need to value your regulars, and if she’s skilled, she probably makes enough money to have a satisfying life. I can’t blame her for not throwing away her stable life to become a traveler. Not to mention that from her perspective, Otto coming out of nowhere and trying to flirt with her would look pretty suspicious. I could imagine her suspecting that he was trying to trick her.
I nodded in interest as I listened, and Otto’s tales of love gradually escalated and heated up. He spoke louder with more force and began waving his arms around.
“When Corinna told me she planned to marry a man from this city, I was so shocked it was like lightning had struck me. I couldn’t even imagine another man marrying Corinna, and after desperately thinking of a solution, I went straight to the temple and bought my citizenship.”
“Wha? Hold on a second. Isn’t that a bit sudden?” I looked at Benno to see if Otto’s behavior was normal for this world, and saw him rubbing his temples with an exhausted expression.
“...Yeah, even a kid would realize that. And that’s not all. The money Otto spent on citizenship here was the money he planned to spend on opening a store in the city where his parents bought their citizenship.”
“Whaaa?!” The price of purchasing citizenship in a city was halved if your parents had citizenship in the city, and Otto had been planning on using the rest to open a shop, according to Benno. Using your life savings to have a chance with a girl you just met instead of opening a store wasn’t something a calculating merchant would do. It was something a rampaging bull with only their goal in sight would do.
“I wanted to open a store in this city, but I didn’t have the money nor did I have the connections back then. I knew becoming a soldier would show Corinna that I was determined to abandon my life as a merchant and start a life here with her, so I asked your father, who I had gotten to know while passing through the gate, and he hired me as a soldier who would deal with their paperwork. Aaah... Thinking about it now, Corinna sure was surprised when I proposed to her after buying my citizenship and becoming a soldier.”
Well I mean... Naturally. There’s not a young woman in the world who wouldn’t be surprised to see someone dump their life savings and change their life just to marry her. I want to ask Corinna her perspective. Did she say yes because she felt the need to keep Otto in control, or because her heart fluttered at the sheer intensity of his love for her? I feel like her story will be completely different from Otto’s.
“I spent days wooing her, and eventually I married into her family, rather than her into mine. You have no idea how cute Corinna looked when she laughed and called me the most persistent man she’d ever met! And now...”
Otto began talking at length about just how cute his wife was. He just wouldn’t stop. I wished he wouldn’t use the excellent communication skills he built up over years as merchant just to brag about his wife. I mean, Lutz was just sitting there, overwhelmed by the endless flood of bragging. I had heard that Otto was all about his wife, but I thought Dad was just exaggerating. He wasn’t.
...What should I do? I didn’t think Otto was this kind of person. I looked to Benno for help, and after making eye contact, he gave a light shrug. He seemed used to this.
“Otto, don’t forget why we’re here. Drop the wife talk and get back on topic.”
“Ahem! Sorry. Anyway, that’s that. Give up on being a traveling merchant.”
What do you mean, that’s that? I wanted to tease him a bit, but I swallowed the urge. He got pretty off topic, but we did learn that traveling merchants didn’t have an apprentice system, that being a traveling merchant is rough, that the citizenship we have is important, and that falling head over heels in love is too scary.
Lutz, having been told to give up his dreams, hung his head to a depressing extent. He had thought hard about his motivations, but got rejected before he could even say them, then got the harsh reality of being a traveling merchant slammed into his face along with endless bragging. Anyone would get depressed.
“...Lutz, this is something Myne suggested, by why don’t you try becoming a normal merchant apprentice? You’ll at least get to leave town to buy merchandise.”
“Myne?!” Lutz’s head shot up and he looked at me. His eyes burning with anger made it clear he was thinking “You knew I wouldn’t be able to become a traveling merchant?”
“I thought it would be better for you if you heard it directly from a former traveling merchant. You’ll believe Otto sooner than you’d believe me, right? Since we’ve grown up the same way.”
“...Ah.” I must have been exactly right, given how Lutz looked away awkwardly.
“I knew from Otto that being a traveling merchant would be hard, so I thought it might be better if you start a job that both lets you go outside the city and won’t get rejected by your family. Plus, I didn’t even know about this until now, but I don’t think you should take a job that would make you lose your city citizenship.”
“...Yeah.” Otto’s speech had definitely given Lutz something to think about. Listening to Otto’s real life experience was definitely more influential to him than anything I could have said.
“Dad told me that Mr. Otto had some connections with merchants of this city, so I was just asking him to introduce you to one of them if you ended up wanting that. You can turn him down if you want, Lutz.”
“...Huh. You really thought this through.” Lutz let out a sigh and looked up a Benno. I looked at him too. If Lutz wanted to be an apprentice merchant, we would have to deal with Benno, not Otto.
“And that’s why I’m here. You want to be a merchant, boy?”
“Yes.” Lutz nodded, and Benno narrowed his red eyes. The casual atmosphere he had when listening to Otto brag about his wife was completely gone. He looked down at Lutz with the narrowed eyes of a predator who had found prey to conquer.
“Hm. So, what do you have to sell? What would you want to sell as a merchant?”
“Wha?” It was normal for interviewers to ask why the applicant wanted to work for them, but Lutz had been thinking of reasons why he wanted to become a traveling merchant. It wasn’t so easy for him to come up with a new reason for becoming a normal merchant on the spot.
“I’m asking what you want to do as a merchant, and what you can do.”
“I...”
Gyaaah! This interview is way too intense for a six-year-old! I wanted to tell Benno to ease up a little, but for merchants, each apprentice involved a significant amount of time and money spent. He had no reason to take Lutz under his wing and take a loss over a connection as weak as “friend of Otto’s assistant.” If Lutz didn’t have something useful to Benno, like proper determination, motivation, or information about a product that would be worth money, it wouldn’t be surprising for him to get rejected immediately. Really, we should be grateful that he was willing to meet us at all.
“If you don’t have an answer, we’re done here.”
I could see Lutz lower his eyes a little and bite his lip in frustration. I didn’t know if what I was about to say would help Lutz or push him onto a road of unnecessary struggling. It would be up to him.
I whispered quietly to Lutz such that only he could hear. “...Will you make my paper, Lutz?”
“I will.” Lutz jerked his head up. He squeezed my hand tightly. I could feel it shaking, but Lutz was glaring at Benno with a ferocious expression. “Yeah, I have something I want to do! I want to make all the things that Myne thinks up!”
“Uh huh. That’s what you’ve been doing for a long time.”
“Myne’ll push herself too far without me, so I’ll make the stuff for her.”
Lutz... I’m proud of you. You said what you needed to say. Benno’s looking really surprised right now.
In the end, I didn’t know whether I pulled Lutz into this or if Lutz pulled me into this, but if Lutz was willing to do what I couldn’t, then I was willing to do what Lutz couldn’t. And unlike him, I had plenty of experience with job interviews.
Still looking up at Benno, I smiled brightly. I took a deep breath, let it out, and began to speak. “I want to make and sell paper that isn’t made from animal skin. It’ll be cheaper to make than parchment, so I think it will be very profitable.”
Hearing that, Benno grimaced. He looked at me with a far more intense glare than he had looked at Lutz with and spoke in a low, harsh voice. “...You want to be a merchant too, girl?”
“Yes. It’s my second choice.” I nodded with a smile, and Otto blinked in confusion.
“Is your first choice doing paperwork at the gate?”
“No, I want to be a (librarian).”
The three of them all looked confused. As expected, they hadn’t understood what I said.
“...Never heard of that before.”
“I want to work a job where I manage a large number of books.”
After I explained what a librarian was in simple terms, Benno began laughing. “Pfff... Haha, sorry, but that’s a job only nobles get to do.”
“...I knew it.” Curse you, nobles. I figured that if only nobles had books, then the librarians managing them would be nobles as well. Status-based discrimination ticked me off.
“But wait. Paper that isn’t parchment, you say? Do you have some on hand?” He glanced at me, visibly on guard. I could guess that he was calculating the effects and potential profit that introducing paper other than parchment into the market would have.
“Not yet.”
“Then we’re done here.”
He said we were done, but he was definitely interested. I could probably push him into a compromise in no time. I broadened my smile. “If you just want a real-life example, I can make one. Our baptism is summer of next year, so I’ll make prototypes of my paper by spring. You can decide then whether you can use them or not.”
“...Alright.” Benno had intended to turn us down, but in the end I had managed to postpone his decision. A clear and splendid victory.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Benno.”
“I haven’t said yes yet.”
“But still, you’ve given us a chance to try.” Now Lutz and I just had to do our best. His job and future were on the line here, so he would probably work hard. I couldn’t help but grin after realizing I now, out of nowhere, had a chance to finally get paper.
“Let’s do our best, Lutz.”
“Yeah.”
“Mr. Otto, thank you very much for introducing us to Mr. Benno.” I expressed my gratitude to Otto, who was looking at us while grinning. Thanks to his efforts, Lutz had wisely given up on becoming a traveling merchant and made the first step toward becoming an apprentice merchant. That was the best possible result I had envisioned for this meeting.
“This day off ended up pretty fun. I’m looking forward to the next time you drop by the gate.”
“Me too.” It seemed that Otto gave us a passing grade too. I sighed in relief and, having noticed that Otto was subtly suggesting we end the meeting here, started walking off with Lutz. Ah... Wait. I forgot.
“Um! I just remembered I have something I want to ask you two, Mr. Otto! Mr. Benno!” I stopped, turned around, and saw that Otto and Benno had likewise started walking off. They both turned around at the same time.
“Yeah? What’s up?” said Otto.
“Do either of you know of a disease where there’s like, heat inside of you that grows and shrinks rapidly?” Otto had traveled the world and Benno seemed like a guy with connections everywhere, so it was possible that one of them knew about the heat inside of me. “It feels like the heat is eating away at your very being, and if you desperately push it back, it shrinks. Sorry for the subjective explanation, but...”
“No clue. I’ve never heard of anything like that.” Otto casually shrugged.
I looked toward Benno. He briefly lowered his eyes, then slowly shook his head. “...Never heard of it.”
If neither of them were familiar with it, then it was safe for me to assume that nobody in my sphere of interaction knew what it was. Apparently, I was sick with something fairly rare.
“...Okay. Thank you.”
Lutz and I resumed walking, holding hands. I didn’t learn anything new about my sickness, but I had won conditional employment and gained a helper for making paper. One step forward.
“Let’s make paper together, Lutz.”
“Yeah!” Lutz, having managed to forge ahead a path in life without his family’s help, gave me a smile filled with hope and excitement.
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